Starry Eyed

I do not wish to become a celebrity, I do not wish to mingle with celebrities, and I don’t really care that much about ‘showbiz’, but for some reason I feel compelled to tell you about my ridiculous two weeks involving numerous encounters with the ‘stars’.

Having started working in London 18 months ago, spotting the likes of Johnny Depp, Keith Lemon, and Hugh Jackman led to the start of ‘Selfie with a Celebrity’ (which attracted a number of humorous comments on Social media) but then I decided that I was just humiliating myself (which is something I am quite good at) so I stopped.

Two weeks ago I brushed shoulders with Paddy McGuiness. I turned around to shout out something original about ‘likes’ and ’lights’ but decided not to, as I walked off praising myself for my new found maturity. Three days later I found myself on a plane with Mz Dynamite, who was telling me off for addressing her as ‘Mz Dynamite’ and was asking me to call her ‘Naomi’ (again, my new found maturity stopped me from actually calling her Ms Dynamite-tee-hee). The day after, all of my dreams came true and I ended up bumping in to Dane Bowers. Well, more accurately, I spotted him across a large crowd and sprinted through in a mad panic so I could tell him how I had always wanted a Great Dane (dog) just for the fact that I could call it Bowers. He found this amusing (I think) and said that no one had ever told him that before, which I find hard to believe- surely everyone wants a Great Dane called Bowers? Later that evening, we found ourselves spending the evening with Jack Whitehall and his lovely friends at their villa in Ibiza. And there’s me thinking it would stop there.

WELL, the other evening I went to a fancy cocktail bar and approached a group of men to ask for their lighter (I do not usually smoke, but the cocktail made me do it). They were smoking cigars and we exchanged pleasantries about the weather. I recognised the Irish man and couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I went back inside to google the possibilities. It was only Keith bloody Duffy. I’ve never been a fan of Boyzone, but I would be lying if I said that my childhood did not involve shouting the lyrics about flying without wings… oh no wait, that’s Westlife. Like an excitable puppy about my new best mate, I ran to the toilets where we crossed paths on the stairs and he asked me how I was “How are ya?”… KEITH DUFFY JUST ASKED HOW I WAS?! I just went bright red and tried as hard as I could to concentrate on not tripping down the stairs, and glamorously glided through the toilet door with an air of effortlessly cool.

It wasn’t until I was at the wash basin, checking my reflection in the mirror, that I noticed the Urinals behind me. It turns out that when you are in a fancy cocktail bar, the sign on the door which displays the letter “G”, is most likely to stand for ‘Gentlemen’. Not ‘Girls’. If I walked in 10 seconds earlier I would have burst in on Keith Duffy in the toilet. There’s ‘playing it cool’ and then there’s straight out ridiculousness and unfortunately, I am pretty good at the latter.